On this blog, you will find activities to do with your toddler, preschooler, and school age child. You will also follow my journey as I learn to organize and manage my family. Since my family, except me, is all male, these are my LESSONS FROM THE BOYS.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

This week we worked on starting an alphabet book. To learn more about our book start here.
We continued to spend a lot of time outside.
Alligator worked on fine motor skills by using a dropper for art, and for moving water.
To see what others are doing for Tot School check out the link!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

I have a new title for these posts since preschool corner implies that this is Monkey’s primary preschool, which is not the case. Monkey attends a fantastic preschool everyday from 9-12. So these are our adventures after school.

Here is my crazy Monkey!

We were working on alphabet books, to expose Alligator to letters. So we are starting with A. Here is Monkey and Alligator working on coloring their A, and making a crafty alligator. You can find the printable here. The Alligator was inspired by No Time for Flashcards. Click the link to see her fantastic site. To see more about our Alphabet book project click here.

Beginning sounds puzzles. I only set out a few at a time, otherwise it is overwhelming for him. (from TFT).

I have liked the “Activity Mom” on facebook. She had a free printable on her page, here is the link to her facebook page. I made magnets out of the printable (laminated and the hot glued old cut up magnets to the back). Monkey was placing them in numerical order on the fridge.

My sister gave Monkey this set for his 2nd birthday. You can make it into anything. The individual squares come apart and velcro back together. She gave us the add-on train set, to turn it into a train engine. I can’t find them online, but I’ll keep looking. As you can see it is still a hit at our house.

Today Monkey learned how to ride my old scooter. I am pretty impressed.

TO see what others did for preschool corner this week check it out here.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

They worked hard on coloring their A’s.
The books will have a cover then they will have their A, and then the is for pages above. I am laminating each page, and will bind it as we get more pages. I am thinking of using those circle clips, until it is finished.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Alligator has a new favorite phase. “Wa-Dat” can be heard over 100 times a day at our house. For those of you who don’t speak Alligator it means “What’s that”.

Lately he points at letters everywhere. Letters in books, on signs, on products….He is determined to figure out what all these things are. So I figure now is a good time to introduce him to letters.

Many years ago (2 to be exact) my wonderful friend introduced us to the concept of an Alphabet Book. She now runs the blog Welcome to Our Wonderland.

I never finished the one I started for Monkey, but now is the time.

Here is how it will work (I will do individual ones for both boys). It will be 2 pages per letter.

Page 1---the boys will decorate a letter A.

Page 2—Pictures of the boys with an A craft, and a picture of the boys with some other object that starts with A.

Each week we will complete another letter of the alphabet.

It will be so neat for the boys to have their very own personalized ABC book, and the activities will be a good first exposure to the letters. I will dedicate a post each week to this activity so you all can see how it is going.

Alligator is 20 months old.
We had such wonderful weather this week, that we spent a great deal of time outside. We went on lots of picnics, and the boys absoluetly loved being in nature. Alligators favorite was finding sticks to swing and hit thngs with.
He was fascinated by this nature sign and continually said “What’s that” for pretty much every picture at least 10 times.
We saw some turtles sun bathing
Daddy joined us and both boys enjoyed sitting with Daddy and looking at the water.
We spent the afternoons in the sandbox at our house
Since the week was busy with nature, I decided to get out our Bug Sensory box from Time for Tots.
We are working on body parts with Alligator’s speech, so we sang our own version of the Lauri Berkner Bands song “pig on her head”
We sang:Alligator’s got a bug on his head, Alligator’s got a bug on his head, Alligator’s got a bug on his head, and he keeps it there all day”
We would substitute different body parts.
To see what others did for Tot school this week, click the button!

Friday, October 15, 2010

We spent a lot of time outside this week. We had the most glorious weather. We went down to a little pond and Monkey loved walking around, actually both boys did.

We saw turtles:
Watched the water. Monkey loved putting a rock in and seeing the circles. He realized that if you threw lots of little rocks it made lots of circles vs. one rock made 1 circle.
He Explored
Played with brother
He loved this little bridge. He couldn’t find a stick long enouch to reach all the way across, so he laid out a bunch.
Almost everyday after Alligator’s nap time we played in our sandbox.
To see what others did for preschool this week click here.

This week I changed things up a little. Here is a picture of our shelves, which house both Monkey and Alex’s activities.

Our daily Art activity:

This is from Mother Goose TIme. I didn’t set out the colored water, because I don’t want it to spill, but they’ll use mini pipettes to place droplets of colored water on the people cut outs.

Sensory Boxes:

Bugs and Alphabet both from Time for Tots.

Monkey’s activities:

Magnet blocks.I am not sure what the brand is but they are similar to these.
Alphapbe puzzles to match to beginning sounds. I have only set out the letters they have done at preschool. (from TfT).
Roll a pumpkin grid game (TfT)
Bulldozer dice game (I added the bulldozer) (TfT).

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About Me

I am a SAHM to 2 boys. I manage the house, play with my kids, and try to take care of myself. I was a teacher (taught 5th grade) so I love finding cool things to do with Monkey and Alligator, that will also teach them.